It is not difficult to invest in good mutual funds, but a lot of people sabotage their own performance.

It is difficult for some people to stay the course. People usually chase hot performers that are overpriced. Although there is no guarantee that past performance is predictive of future results, some people rely too much on past performance. When they get into the hot fund, it starts tanking and the person sells the fund and goes to another hot performer. This is buying high and selling low.

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Relying solely on mutual fund ratings Morningstar ranking is based on past performance too and can be misleading if a fund does not fit into a specific category. So investors should not rely only rating systems such as Morningstar, Lipper, S&P, or Valueline rating when choosing mutual funds.

Another problem is staying the course. A lot of investors like to switch funds often. They sell their funds when they have been underperforming for a couple of months. Panic selling may occur too when there is a sudden drop in price.

Still, other investors never look at their portfolio or funds. Some people do not check on their funds in their 401k or retirement accounts. They ignore their investments and do not do any research or follow up on their holdings even though there is a lot of money in their account. They will do weeks of research when buying a $300 camera, but they do not spend the time to research their funds in their account that has thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Investing is not difficult; it just takes discipline, patience and common sense.